FBI director speaks about race relations

Comey: Officerssometimes acton unconsciousbiases, cynicism

FBI Director James Comey discusses race and law enforcement, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015, at Georgetown University in Washington. Comey said the nation is at a âcrossroadsâ on matters of race relations and law enforcement, saying the country must confront hard truths following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the slayings of two police officers in New York. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Photo: Cliff Owen, FRE

WASHINGTON - The United States is at a crossroads on matters of race relations and law enforcement, presenting "hard truths" the public and police must confront, FBI Director James Comey said Thursday.

He stepped into the national discussion about police conduct and officers' interactions with minority communities, explaining he "felt like we haven't had a healthy dialogue, and I don't want to see these important issues drift away."

Immediacy needed

Speaking at Georgetown University, he noted there was "a tendency to move on to other things as busy people. But these issues, especially about race and law enforcement, have always been with us, and we can't let it drift away and then talk about it another day."

The deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York, at the hands of white police officers, as well as the more recent slayings of two New York police officers, have raised issues on both sides of the debate, Comey said.

One is that police officers who work in neighborhoods where most street crime is committed by young black men might hold unconscious biases and be tempted to take what he called "lazy mental shortcuts" in dealing with suspicious situations.

That means officers might be influenced by "cynicism," relying on assumptions they should not make and complicating the "relationship between police and the communities they serve," he said.

"The two young black men on one side of the street look like so many others that officer has locked up," Comey said. "Two white men on the other side of the street - even in the same clothes - do not. The officer does not make the same association about the two white guys, whether that officer is white or black, and that drives different behavior."

But another truth, he said, is minorities in poor neighborhoods too often inherit a "legacy of crime and prison," a cycle he said must be broken to improve race relations with police.

The speech was Comey's most expansive take on issues that came to the forefront last summer after Brown, 18, an unarmed black, was fatally shot during a confrontation with a white police officer. In December, two New York officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were shot dead in their patrol car in Brooklyn.

Follow Holder's lead

Attorney General Eric Holder has spoken frequently on the topic - and faced criticism for doing so. Last month, he urged better data on how often police use force and are themselves attacked.

Comey echoed those calls in his speech Thursday, saying there should be more reliable records on the circumstances of police shootings and the demographics of the individuals involved. The FBI tracks the "justifiable homicides" by police officers, but because departments report figures voluntarily, the numbers are incomplete.

"The first step to understanding what is really going on in our communities and our country is to gather more and better data related to those we arrest, those we confront for breaking the law and jeopardizing public safety, and those who confront us," Comey said.